Laura Allen, who plays Michael Britten's (
Jason Isaacs) wife Hannah on NBC's new show
"Awake," had a friend corner her recently and ask point blank, "Are you alive or are you dead?"

"I don't know," she says during a conference call Monday (March 13), along with
Dylan Minnette, who plays her teenage son Rex on the show. "And if I did know ... I'm glad not to know."

She is, of course, referring to the Thursday night show's trippy premise in which the main character moves between two dueling realities -- one in which his wife survived a car accident, which killed his son, and one in which the opposite is true.

As for whether the realities could in fact be dreams, as the psychologists in each of Michael's worlds describe, Allen describes writer
Kyle Killen's disappearing narrative theory.

"We dream more than we can remember about dreaming," she says. "We only remember the parts that we're involved in ... but we do exist as part of a larger world."

Confused yet? Well, just wait until the penguins come on the scene. Yes, the penguins.

"I'm excited for the penguin episode," Allen says, referring to the series' sixth episode entitled, "That's Not My Penguin," "because it introduces ... a whole new dimension to what this man can dream about."